Mimidokodesuka

One of Jim O'Rourke's first releases after his 2005 relocation to Japan, Mimidokodesuka by the Osorezan trio reunites the Chicago-reared experimenter with both avant-garde electric guitar (something he'd taken an extended break from during his turn of the century pop projects and work with Wilco and Sonic Youth) as well as a longtime collaborator in bassist Darin Gray. Recorded live (the trio would also accompany Japanese free saxophonist Akira Sakata on a companion session, released as Oyobare/Tetrodotoxin), Mimidokodesuka consists of three improvisations. The trio's dialogue veers from pulsing, full-throttle noise on the middle six minutes of "All We Know So Far" to considered ambient passages ("Form of the Collapse If a Collapse Should Occur") that turn into free schizoidisms at the drop of a hat. Or, in the case drummer Chris Corsano, a knife. Easily the trio's secret weapon, it is Corsano's manic cymbal work, at once finely controlled and viscerally anarchic, that gives shape to O'Rourke's sometimes tentative phrases, engaging the sometimes reluctant improviser fully. It's not unexplored territory in the bigger picture, but every moment on Mimidokodesuka is new, never to be repeated. ~ Jesse Jarnow